Harvests of Radish and Lettuce, and More Planting

We’re harvesting enough lettuce thinnings for a large three-person’s-worth every two days. I’m also pulling radishes. Last year I hated these radishes, the Easter Eggs. They were maggot-ridden, tough and bitter. This year they are sweet and crisp and perfect. I am also about to pick the first peas.

I direct-seeded more lettuce and radish. I also filled in the gaps in the carrot bed. The Scarlet Nantes germinated well but the Atomic Red and especially the Tonda di Parigi proved spotty. No matter, I was planning on succession sowing carrots anyway, only in a more spatially orderly fashion.

Something ate all the lima beans that I had sowed inside the hoop house. The first leaves were chewed up all the way to the stem as soon as they emerged. I’m thinking it’s a bug and I’m thinking diatomaceous earth. I had better act soon because it moved on to my outside bean beds.

After pulling the chewed-up limas I now have an entire bed open in the hoop house. I can’t put the Solanaceae in since that bed had blighted potatoes in it last year.  But I’m thinking lots and lots of pesto basil. And some okra, to see if I can grow it.

I also pulled everything in the bolted kale bed. That kale eventually grew above all our heads, to 9 feet high. I pulled it because it started wilting and kept one plant to hang to dry in the porch, so I can harvest the fat seedpods. That bed also had lots of chard in it, but the seedlings, so carefully nurtured under the grow lights, just turned brown and withered. Then I noticed the ants. Ants usually don’t harm plants, but there are so many of them, they disrupted the soil too much: it is one ant heap. I’m thinking diatomaceous earth again. Then new chard seedlings, which I sowed in flats on my porch.

The strawberries are still tiny, but they have flowers. And the asparagus fern is shooting up very prettily.

These days it takes me an hour to water the entire garden (minus the berry bushes, the strawberries and the lavender and wormwood beds that I planted last week), but at the moment we’re having thunderstorms. I need to patrol my rain barrels because the fat pollen that gets washed down keeps clogging up the meshes that cover the holes in the top.

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1 Comment

  1. Sounds like things are coming along very well. Gardening always has it’s ups and downs though, doesn’t it? I’m glad to hear your scarlet nantes sprouted well. This is what I got to sow in the fall. What do you think the difference is for your radishes? Like you, the ones I planted last year were disappointing, but this spring’s have been great.

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